Commercial article printing typically occurs during the production of the article. For example, ball skins are printed with patterns or logos prior to the ball being completed and inflated. Consequently, a non-production establishment, such as a distribution site or retail store, for example, in a region in which potential product customers support multiple professional or collegiate teams, needs to keep an inventory of products bearing the logos of various teams followed in the area. Ordering the correct number of products for each different logo to maintain the inventory can be problematic.
One way to address these issues in non-production outlets would be to keep unprinted versions of the products, and print the patterns or logos on them at the distribution site or retail store. Printers known as direct-to-object (DTO) printers have been developed for printing individual objects. Operating these printers with known printing techniques, such as two-dimensional (2D) media printing technology, to apply image content onto three-dimensional objects produces mixed results. As long as the surface of the objects are relatively flat, the images are acceptable. However, many products, such as mugs, water bottles, pens, and the like, have curved surfaces, which adversely impact the printed image quality. With known 2D printing processes, the density of the ink image, which can be measured in drops per inch (dpi) or mass per unit area, on the curved product surface varies significantly, often producing streaks in the prints. Moreover, the curvature of the objects cause the ink drops to travel through different distances from the printhead to the object surface. These differences in distances traveled lead to distorted images. Therefore, a printing process control system that produces quality images for a wide variety of products having varying degrees of curvature would be beneficial.